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The officially changed it in my country to be an syndrome diagnosable in adults as well the very year I turned 18. I’m not saying it HAS to be because of me, but yeah.
Doctor leaves appointment with Droggelbecher
“Get the Chancellor on the phone immediately.”
You want me to pay bills? On time? Best I can do is rack up late fees.
Set auto payments for all the things!
Oh, my workaround for that is easy, just develop lifelong crippling anxiety and still forget about 10% of them anyways!
Anxiety is a heaven sent for the Bill Paying Problem.
Yeah. I feel like it never bothered me when younger (he’s “gifted and mature”) but you get screwed later on when you have a 8-5 office job where you sit and stare for 9 hours. I can’t focus on boring useless stuff like that. Unfortunately, the alternative is destroy your body doing manual labor to keep moving around. Plus. You make a lot more money sitting and staring at a screen. So just keep it bottled up and pretend you know what you’re doing and don’t feel like going nuts!
This is kinda why I ended up as a manufacturing engineer. It’s technical, well paid, and doesn’t require hard physical labor. But I’m constantly “putting out fires” and going to some forgotten corner of the factory to figure out what broke. “Oops sorry I skipped the meeting - the production line was stopped!” Neurotypicals view this chaos as stressful, but it’s the only way I can flow through the day without hating my job.
Lucked out big time.
I’m still doing physical labor, but I think neurotypical people would go crazy with my schedule. I don’t know what days I’m working sometimes until two days before. I don’t even know where in the country I’ll be next week. I thrive in the chaos and the physical work, but I can’t keep it up forever. Freelance contractor for IT work.
what they mean by that is, “thank god they learned to mask the problem so they stop inconveniencing us”
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Your experience isn’t everyone’s experience, and judging people who struggle more helps no one. I was medicated as a teenager, grew out of it, then suddenly got whacked over the head by it coming back in my late twenties. Medication has helped, and I’ve learned a lot of tricks to manage it, but the fact that I have to work twice as hard or more to do basic things that other people do without thinking means it clearly is a disability. I’m also autistic and I feel far more disabled by my ADHD than my autism.
Have you considered the possibility that you don’t have ADHD or that your symptoms are on the very mild side? You clearly have no understanding of executive dysfunction.
Never formally diagnosed lol.
Don’t cut yourself on that edge.
It’s not that we think we have zero responsibility or whatever - it’s that, as you described, we put in a lot of effort to find coping mechanisms and management strategies, and then people like this cut-rate psych point to the results of that effort and say ‘See, it’s gone!’ It’s not gone, you dingbat, we have to manage it and it takes a lot of work, and maybe it would be nice - just once - to get some recognition for all that work we’re doing rather than pretending the problem doesn’t exist any more.
I am not diagnosed either and I too have managed my life somewhat okayish so far because I have some really good people around me, but at the same time I know A LOT of ADHDers irl and they are all very different both when it comes to severity of their symptoms and what types of symptoms they have.
What is somewhat manageable to me is impossible to others and what others are able to do, I am unable to myself.
I know high functioning ADHDers and I know severe cases where their symptoms are so bad, even when on medication, that they will never be able to function in society.
If I may compare, you and I may be partially blind. It is definitely enough to affect us in our daily lives. At least it is for me. But we are able to manage and somewhat navigate the world and we can still see shapes and colors, just very out of focus.
What you’re essentially doing with your post is asking someone who was born without eyes to see as well as you do. “Just get some glasses. It worked for me.”
But they are blind, bro. They don’t have eyes. Both of you are blind, but blindness is on a spectrum, just like ADHD is.
I never considered that what I was dealing with could be ADHD because the ADHDers I had known up until that point were the severe cases and they never got any better. Some of them didn’t try at all while others really did their best and yet they still failed constantly.
I’m relatively good at hiding my failings so people don’t notice unless they are paying attention. But I still fail almost daily despite having tried all types of organizing systems, scolding myself into getting my shit together and establishing this and that routine. I always fail. I keep trying, but I will never be able to get good at having structure in my life no matter how much I want it. I can see shapes and colors, but I cannot read you that sign over there. No matter how much I try, I just can’t.
Nothing you said is helpful to anyone with this condition, regardless if you have it or not. Please take your organizers and calendars and reminders and bootstraps and kindly post elsewhere.
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Meditate on why you have that impulse and ask if you can control it or it controls you.
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It bothers me that no one acknowledged that this can still be logically true. Of course if most people’s ADHD goes away in childhood then it doesn’t really logically mean anything to ask “most people you know with ADHD” because by definition, you will only be asking the subset of people for whom that isn’t true.
You can’t really survey the people for whom ADHD went away in childhood by asking all the people you know with ADHD because the people who would confirm the psychologist’s claim are not going to be included in that survey.
True
But it is also be true that the insight “most people loose ADHD by adulthood” is in itself kind of flawed as people can develop coping methods which can mask the ADHD. If there’s a significant people complaining/reporting then, it would be something to look into.
People are more open about having adhd into adulthood as compared to in the past where it might have been seen as a childish thing and hence undesirable to report. And not a problem enough to report it to someone who could help with that.
These are assumptions based on personal and shared anecdotes, so I guess you could still argue what you said is right.
Man it got worse in ways i didn’t think possible.
So convinced i understood myself and i actually masterminded my soul into stagnation…
…but a hand come out of the mud
So far, what do you think ADHD is?
Shame, anxiety, restlessness
I don’t have the ADHD. I am the ADHD.
Made this for ya while procrastinating
I was picturing that exact thing in my head but didn’t get around to making it. Thank you.
We’re all reading this while procrastinating
Maybe YOU are…
(and also so am I:-)
I read this while not paying attention to an anime intro.
I’m reading this and zoning out
Hey, I don’t actually have any responsibilities right now! Except planning my lessons for next week, but I’ve got time. I guess I could also do the dishes or hang the laundry or email my advisor about my thesis topic…
Well shit.
Now listen here…next time you wanna come for me, at least send me a comfortable ride, lol.
I visited my first psychiatrist this year and told him I have concerns that I was adhd.
I shit you not a fucking Dr of psychiatry told me that was very unlikely because they would’ve caught it when I was a child.
Fucking moron.
unfortunately a lot of people still use the bar of needing to be unable to live a functional life to entertain any sort of treatment. if you’ve grown up with a life and job, you’ll not be taken seriously a lot of the time.
it’s a double edged sword. ADHD meds have definitely been over prescribed to a certain degree the past decade or so and docs have been gatekeeping ADHD treatment a bit more these days.
this is what I hear from my wife who is a pediatrician.
It very much felt like he was scared I would get hooked on stimulants
laughs in being born a woman (Obviously, I don’t know what your gender is, I’m just speaking generally.)
I understand what you are saying, Drs not believing women is a fucking problem.
Also, particularly for ADHD, women and girls would fall through the cracks as tests were often designed around typical ADHD presentation in boys, because of course it fucking is…
I didn’t get diagnosed until I was just under 30, medication has done wonders for myself since. I don’t think my parents had a clue, I was quite smart, if I had medication in my school days I can only wonder what I may have achieved, but I’m a university dropout. Doing okay but I do wonder sometimes.
A questions if I may,
Are you on stimulant or non stimulant meds?
Stimulant, dexedrine is what worked for me. At one point I tried a number others and they didn’t seem to work the same, even Adderall wasn’t the same but I know it’s very similar. Know Vyvanse was another, but know there were a couple other I don’t recall. First one was Ritilan but that gave me hives which took me a bit to register why they were happening, well two days but easy enough since it was the new thing.
Thank you for your input. I’m glad you’re medication is helping.
Saw 3 psychologists (one was a student) and they all blew me off because I was an older woman.
Finally got diagnosed two and a half years ago in my early 60’s.
What has your experience been like after being diagnosed?
I tried meds right after diagnosis but they messed me up something fierce (awake for 36 hrs, etc). Guess my coping/masking was so ingrained that meds didn’t help at all.
Now I’m starting to heal from the burnout but still have issues when there’s too many people around (my brain gets overwhelmed).
Thank you for the input!
I was diagnosed last year, age 41. I think back to one of my earliest memories, where someone took me out of 2nd grade class to give me tests in some big closet or boiler room. I am convinced I was diagnosed at that time with at least ADHD, but my mom didn’t believe in mental health treatments despite desperately needing them herself. She’s dead so I can’t ask her what those tests were about.
It definitely got less hyperactive and more fogbrain, as I like to call it.
Why does it seem like ADHD is the new Autism self-diagnosis? I’ve met a lot of people lately who have self-diagnosed themselves with ADHD.
Because it was wildly under diagnosed in many places until recently, and if you weren’t a white boy you were a lot less likely to be correctly diagnosed.
I thought the consensus was that it was wildly OVER diagnosed in the late 90s to make kids shut up in school
edit: Oh lmao I just realized was sublemmy I’m in
If we look at the timeline of ADHD research, we can see that there was a lot studies about it in the 80s, and even more in 90s, so it kinda makes sense that there would be more ADHD detected in the population when the general understanding of it improved.
Also DSM IV was published in 94, and refined the diagnostic criteria for ADHD https://www.cdc.gov/adhd/media/pdfs/ADHDTimeline.pdf
How exactly would your answer be different if you’d realised where you were?
My answer wouldn’t have changed, I just would’ve realized why I’m getting the same response over and over lol
This is probably because you are stating your subjective opinion in a rude & condescending way, instead of providing any peer-reviewed data to back up your claims.
tl;dr/succinct version - you are full of shit
I don’t think anything I said was rude just because you disagree with it
That was the pop culture take on it, that doesn’t mean that’s what the evidence shows.
Bcz people don’t actually understand that ADHD is a debilitating condition that I wouldnt wish on my worst enemy. (I don’t have any enemies tho bcz I’m an adult :P)
I think some people are just trying to score Ritalin
Ritalin is a nightmare drug, so no.
I think
Ah there you have the root cause
Every person with ADHD I have met has related heavily to my struggles with simply staying on my prescribed medication, you should reevaluate what you think you know about the disorder because you seem really ignorant.
I was diagnosed with ADHD and ODD when I was 8, but haven’t taken the meds in years
lol the ODD explains it all.
Bye bye now
Wow pretty ableist bro
It’s true that, for people who don’t have ADHD, the meds used to treat it can be misused for ‘recreational purposes’. For people with ADHD however, is not a party drug. Infact, it has the opposite effect’s (generally).
No I’m not saying they’re using it as a party drug, they’re using it to focus on school and work and stay up late. People do it in the tech industry all the time
Which is of course reason enough to withhold it from the people who need it and to doubt their experience at every turn. /S
Don’t be surprised when this kind of response is met with hostility.
I mean, read the room.
Because a lot of people don’t have access to mental health resources, or even medical ones, and are struggling with the pressures of navigating a life setup for type A brains with a type B brain. They know “something” is off, and find symptoms match up with ADHD.
I only got diagnosed because I was at the hospital for something else, and the local specialist noticed something was off with my behaviour. (I was there for a little while, to be fair.)
As an adult, navigating anything administrative is a nightmare.
My adult appointment for testing/evaluation was nearly 2 grand. I met my annual deductible in a month because of it. I’m fortunate enough to be middle class, so I could afford it, but I can’t imagine someone making a lower end of middle class income just being able to drop that kind of money like that.
My provider that tested both of my kids stopped taking insurance for tests, so they wanted me to pay 13000 dollars for spectrum testing, I found a different provider and I still have to get lined up with a test but they’ve already started my adhd symptoms right away. It has been so nice after 34ish years of just coping
There are much cheaper ways to get a diagnosis, even for people without health insurance.
You got that backwards.
Without looking it up, I believe the DSM says that diagnosis requires three out of five indicators. That would suggest that many people can get one or two indicators. Social media (specifically short form like twitter, instagram, and TikTok) has measurable negative impact on attention spans, while also propagating a narrative of colloquial symptoms.
“Whee look at me being neurodivergent!” - golly, I do that too! Maybe I’m ADHD.
For what it’s worth, I have both ADHD and mild autism. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist. I’m saying that the diagnosis is devalued by “oh i do that too, I’m also a little bit adhd”.
I self diagnosed before getting my formal diagnosis from a doctor. I was a hard yes to like 30 of the 32 signs of adult ADHD in Driven to Distraction.
At some point it’s kinda a relief to realize that other people are going through the same stuff as you, and start therapy and treatment that are actually catered to your needs since you’ve already tried a million other things and nothing has worked.
And yeah everybody struggles with executive function and attention sometimes. But like, we all bleed when we’re cut, doesn’t mean haemophilia is fake.
Of course it got worse, I have to work now
Turns out that people don’t “grow out of” physiological differences in how their prefrontal cortex forms. Who would have thought?! /s
Hmm I’m sure it’s personal for each but me I feel like I didn’t outgrow it. More like I overcame it.
Well, there is partial truth to this. Diagnosing especially preteens with mental health conditions almost always needs an asterisk, their brains are still heavily developing.
Remember that we know of no reliable genetic / physiological markers for ADHD, so when doctors diagnose it, they’re really just saying that the amount of symptoms seems to be severe enough. Some kids are just naturally more energetic, intelligent, etc. and may appear like they have ADHD, but when they develop into adults that might not actually be the case.
If anything, it’s more like 1/3 of kids were misdiagnosed as having ADHD, so they “grew” out of it because they didn’t really have it. It’s a lot less likely for an adult to be misdiagnosed because their brains aren’t changing.
Great reminders about the lack of physiological markers. The (or one?) elephant in the room, to me - I’d phrase it as - to what degree a kid’s just naturally well- or poorly-suited to the public school environment itself.
A child that finds it difficult to sit in one place and listen to words about abstract material for hours every day…I mean does that sound divergent in any way?
One of the fundamental markers of childhood in my experience is a certain…animation, just this almost irresistible urge to move around, negotiate whatever activity is occurring and in what way, with whoever is nearby…switching activities and modes of play fluidly. Seems like the most normal shit ever to me lol.
I do recognize we need a standardized way to educate our kids in a modern society, but as we learn more about young brains, we gotta start developing a more diverse way to accomplish the learning and development of self-discipline. The one-size-fits-all approach just obviously leaves many underserved, and worse, leaves them internalizing a lot of frustration with self, not to mention taking all kinds of drugs to “treat those symptoms”.
Well yeah, if they got better, they wouldn’t be someone you know with ADHD. Obviously
